Several Thoughts from the Seventh Child

This will be my last Tumblr post.  I am switching gears and going with Wordpress.  Why?  I’ll tell you why…

1) Tumblr is great for random postings, stream of consciousness, and is the quick and dirty of blogging (other quick and dirty exist, but this is one of the best).

2) Wordpress is a little more “grown-up.”

3) Wordpress will allow me to establish myself more as a coherent individual online — let’s be serious (that’ll be a stretch anywehere I go…).

and finally,

4) The more difficult things are, the better — right?

So, come check me out, at my new blog.

I have a problem and his name is “The Spy…”

You see, I play two classes that for the Spy is like sweet nectar from the gods when he kills me; the Heavy and the Medic.  I enjoy these classes, perhaps because they are interlocked quite a bit in their daily events: Heavies takes lots of damage, Medics heal lots of damage — fair enough.  But then comes the Spy.  With one fell swoop, he can obliterate either the Medic, the Heavy, or sometimes (if your teammate is oblivious) both.

There is one large tactical disadvantage to falling under the eyes of the preying Spy.  It’s called latency, voice latency.  There I am, doing my duties as a Medic and I see a Spy — I yell !Spy! — however, the lag between my mic sending and their speakers receiving is long enough for the spy to stab, stab, and run — leaving behind him a path of dead enemies.  What can I do?  I’ve become paranoid — peeking behind me at random times.  I sometimes find this bleeding into real life.

I’ll be about to get on the train to go to an audition and I’ll stop and swing around hoping that I don’t see someone… or is it that I do see someone?  I can’t tell which is better.  If you don’t see someone, then perhaps the Spy is cloaked.  What if that’s true?  However, if you do see someone, then perhaps that someone is a Spy!  This leads to Spy-checking.

Spy-checking is the art of either shooting your teammates, running through them, or having them speak to you.  You see, a Spy gets hurt when you shoot him, you can’t run through him like you can your teammates, and he cannot talk to you (though the bastard can yell, “Medic!”).  But again, here’s the biggest problem with spy checking for either a Heavy or a Medic: Time.

Not in the Shakespearean sense of “Time,” or in delayed sense of latency, but in the literal sense, as in, duration.  It takes time to start the spinning of your favorite Gatling Gun.  It takes time to switch from your Medi-gun to either your Needler, or your Ubersaw (more on this later).  The amount of time you spend switching your weapon or spinning it up could mean the difference between winning and losing — you laugh, but it’s true.  Ubers take longer to charge when switching off of healing, Heavies move slower when spinning up their guns; these things can be crucial!

It turns out that a friendly little guy who has trouble speaking named the Pyro is our best friend — though it’s very difficult to talk one of these guys into protecting us (I’m not sure why).  So, my song is over — my latent lament.  Hopefully this tale of woe will illuminate someone, or perhaps it’s merely therapy.  Whatever the case, “Hi my name is Seton and I have a problem… and his name is ‘The Spy.’”

—————-The Ubersaw ——————

Hitting an enemy with the Ubersaw will increase your Ubercharge faster than any healing.  So, swing away at all thought-to be spies.

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I lost my bag the other day.  “Lost?” you say…  As in, someone walked off with it.  Lost, in the sense of gone for good.  Lost, in the sense of stolen from me.  Lost, in the sense of… Lost.

A few things upset me about this loss…

First, it’s a very nice bag.  I don’t necessarily mean expensive, I mean rather, that it serves its function well.  It was a well-researched, well-thought out purchase that allowed me to A) supply myself with a bag that was designed for my technological lifestyle, and B) allowed me to support my favorite Linux distro called Ubuntu.  Without getting too sentimental, lets just say that this bag has [had] a special place in my heart.

Which brings us to the point of the matter — what was IN the bag.  All told, maybe $800 worth of materials.  It’s just money though, and as we all know, money ebbs and flows — this was just a whole lot of ebbing.  What really hurts isn’t that I lost my netbook and hard drive.  It’s that I lost my netbook and my hard drive and everything I’ve ever done creatively or professionally in one fell swoop.

Now, I imagine it’s my fault for carrying it around with me and not having more than one backup.  But the fact of the matter is that there were ten people (all of whom I knew) within six feet of the bag when it was stolen.  We were at a private party after the show, which means the culprit had to walk up a flight of stairs, grab the bag and walk away, without being seen by the ten people standing right next to it.  It baffles me.

My only glimmer of hope is that this bag is not a very common bag.  Which means that if I see someone walking with it, chances are it’s mine.  That’s where the football I’ve been practicing comes in and I tackle them into the nearest subway and remedy my losses.

——————-Editor’s note ———————

No acts of violence are condoned on this website and any references herein are purely for show.

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I’m left with a void.  A small crack in the piece of me that believes that humans are inherently good; that the world isn’t a scary place, but a place of adventure filled with wondrous things at which to marvel.  I need some needle and thread, or a very large band-aid. 

I am privileged to play the part of Lysander in Mortal Folly Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream here in New York City, NY.  This will be the first show that I am in since moving here a few months ago.  The time spent digging, diving, and developing the text has been wonderful.  Mortal Folly Theatre is a new company founded by Katherine Harte-DeCoux and the performing space is a lovely little space called The Richmond Shepard Theatre. 

If you have a chance, you should get out of your house and come to The City.  The theatre is located at 26th Street and 2nd Ave.  The show runs Wednesday through Sunday, June 2nd - 20th, 8:00pm and 3:00pm (Sundays).  Tickets are $18, however, this is an equity approved showcase, so if you’re equity, don’t forget your membership card to show at the door.  There is live music after some of the shows, so stick around, chat with the actors, have a drink, and enjoy yourself!